


Statement #0122803

by A185160



Series: AIC TMA [1]
Category: Rainbow Plane Universe Fic - Fandom, The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Agent, Although having knowledge of TMA will probably help, As for the title - I checked the podcast it's not an actual statement number (pre-season 5), Asexual Character, Martin and Sasha are just mentioned at the end in true statement fashion, No beta we die with our mistakes, Our favorite archivist discovers the AIC over a series of recorded statements, Please don't screw me over season 5, Rainbow Plane Universe Fic, Season 1 Archive Team, Shadows - Freeform, Warning is for an OC, You don't need to know about the Rainbow Plane Universe to get it, aic, season 1 setting, slight body horror
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-02
Updated: 2020-04-02
Packaged: 2021-03-01 00:27:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,728
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23446243
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/A185160/pseuds/A185160
Summary: Statement of Astra Lunaris, regarding her experiences working as a journalist for her college paper.
Series: AIC TMA [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1686703
Comments: 1
Kudos: 5





	Statement #0122803

Statement of Astra Lunaris, regarding her experiences working as a journalist for her college paper. Original statement given March 28th, 2012. Audio recording by Jonathan Sims, Head Archivist of the Magnus Institute, London. 

Statement Begins: 

Working as a reporter you hear a lot of weird stories. Not necessarily bad stories you understand, just odd. I mean I can’t count the number of wild conspiracy theories I’ve heard. But sometimes...well sometimes you hear something and you just have to check it out. Doesn’t matter how far fetched the story is, sometimes there’s a stirring. I don’t know how else to explain it. It’s a conviction, I suppose. A story thread you just have to follow. 

For a year in college, at Godwin University, I had a roommate named Emma Riebin. We were fairly friendly and our schedules didn’t overlap much, she was a math major and I was most decidedly not. So we figured we could room together. It was a good arrangement, and despite some differences in personality, we got along well. Better than most other roommate arrangements I knew actually. 

Emma had a sister, an upperclassman named Amelia. She was fairly nice at first, but I don’t think she saw me as anything more than her kid sister’s friend you know? Or at least she did until she learned I wrote for the paper. See, our paper had more than a few run-ins with the college’s administration. They weren’t particularly good at giving us statements, and they often...took issue with how we presented stories. 

Amelia was one of the administration’s student interns. From what I heard it was a pretty cushy gig. After Amelia learned I was a student reporter she - she looked at me differently. It’s hard to put into words, but it was kind of like - you know how when you’re fresh out of childhood adults start to speak to you differently, and you take notice? That’s what it was like. She looked at me, sized me up, and decided I was worth some attention. I do miss her. It was nice to have someone like that, especially when I was an underclassman. 

One day a couple months after Amelia learned I worked for the paper Emma and I were hanging out in our dorm room discussing weekend plans. There was a knock and Amelia came in. She was - I don’t know exactly, but something seemed...off. Sure physically she was present, but something - something wasn’t right. She looked distracted and I remember she was playing with her jacket, twisting it back and forth in her hands, crumpling it up, and tearing at the fabric. She asked to speak with me. I remember thinking it odd. Sure, I knew her, but her sister was right there. I even asked if she’d rather speak with Emma, but she said no. Said it had to be me. She asked me to go into the hallway with her. 

To my surprise she told me she had a story. She asked me to come by her room that night so she could tell me more. She didn’t wait for me to respond. Emma asked if everything was alright when I got back. I told her I wasn’t sure, but she didn’t seem concerned. Emma told me Amelia had always been a bit dramatic and that it was best to just indulge her. She’d never done any real harm by it. If only that had been true. I think I nodded, but something about the situation made me nervous. But I’d felt it. That stirring. There was a story here, and I wanted to find it. 

That night I went to Amelia’s room. When I entered, the place was spotless. Now that’s not necessarily a strange thing, I know some people are like that, but this -. There was nothing personal about that room. Nothing on the walls, or the desk. The bed was made with bright white sheets under a bright white blanket. That wasn’t the strangest thing though. That was the lights. Now our dorms had decently bright lights, but alongside those Amelia had lamps, the brightest kind you could get, everywhere. There were even a couple under the bed. I had to shade my eyes just to walk in. Her room seemed almost like a surgical suite with all that light. 

Amelia sprang up from the bed with an energy that was almost manic when I walked in. She snatched up a lamp and flung open one of her desk drawers. She shined the light in before grabbing a pile of papers and slamming the drawer shut. Then she thrust the papers at me. I was bewildered by this entire process, but I sat down, trying not to bump any of the lamps and started with the first piece of paper. 

It was a typed up order from the desk of our school’s president, a man called Dr. James. It hadn’t been sent out yet. The order named several students supposedly involved with activities that were allegedly “dangerous to the rest of the student body.” It commanded that the students be rounded up and forced to “answer for their behavior.” Then they would be “dealt with in the appropriate manner.” It didn’t seem entirely off until Amelia gestured to a photocopied note underneath. It simply read - “E.B. Did what you asked. Found the marked ones. -C. James.” The rest of those papers were the names. Thirty, maybe forty students. Amelia sat up and tapped one of the names. I knew before I looked that it was my own. 

Amelia told me she had a plan. A way for us to get away safe. She was on the list as well. I tried to argue we should just take it to the paper. I could get this published, discredit the claim that we were dangerous. Besides what was the worst the administration could do? Amelia shook her head. Told me no one would believe me, and besides by the time Monday’s paper came out it would be too late. This was supposed to go into effect over the weekend. Our only chance was now. She ignored my last question. 

I agreed. I mean what else could I have done? There was the stirring, but deeper than that, I knew the accusations were unfounded. But I also knew the college wouldn’t be upset to see me go. We all knew reputation was everything to our school, and they lost that with one of my articles. I’d written a piece on their disability policy a while back. Namely, that they didn’t have one. I was in hot water with the administration for a while over that one. 

Amelia and I snuck into the administrative building. As a student worker, she had a key. Our general plan if someone was there was to say she forgot some books and needed my help to carry them. We shouldn’t have worried. No one was there on a Friday night. 

Amelia brought a truly enormous amount of flashlights, and she refused to go into the building unless I went in first and turned the lights on. As if that would have helped us in the end. I did what she wanted though. It was strange, being in the building without anyone there. Every shadow seemed longer and every door seemed to hide something ominous, though I knew they were just offices and conference rooms. 

We snuck through the halls. The building seemed...larger than it usually was. I don’t know if it was a trick of the light or just being there at night. The hallways seemed to twist around us, closing in, then opening up again at random. Amelia jumped at every sound. Finally, we reached the president’s office. It was far away from any of the others, but Amelia knew there was a passage between his room and the secretary’s. She had the key, but wouldn’t tell me where she’d gotten it. I know student workers don’t have regular access though. 

Nonetheless, we opened the door and made our way through. The secretary had a standard office, Dr. James though...as soon as I stepped into that space, I felt a deep sense of unease. For one thing it was warm. Unusually warm. Like there’d just been a fire going. I knew, logically that was ridiculous, but it just felt that way. There was even a faint whiff of smoke. I have asthma, so I tend to be sensitive to triggers like smoke. I could even feel my lungs tightening in response. Amelia had the opposite reaction. Now that we were in the office at our goal, her nerves melted away. She strode forward, almost confident. I stayed near the edges, and now I thank every higher power out there that I did. 

Amelia came to the desk and opened up the first drawer. Something...something fell out of it. The smell of smoke filled the air as it dropped. A small dark shape, a square I think, that she bent to pick up. As she held it up, it seemed to, well this might sound ridiculous but I promise it’s not, it seemed to swell in her hand. It bulged, growing out of itself, then faster than either of us could even process, it burst. There was a sound, a hissing sound. I think Amelia tried to drop it, but it wouldn’t detach from her hand. She shook her hand, but the...the thing...the shadow...whatever it was, it trickled down her fingers, onto her hand, covering it like a glove. 

She screamed, trying desperately to shake it off, but it - it kept moving, down her arm, up her shoulder and neck. I grabbed hold, trying to yank it off her, but it slipped through my fingers, like it was made of silk. Amelia was still screaming, staggering to try and get it off. I had fallen to the floor, and I was just starting to get up, when she slammed into the desk. It burst open with more hisses and hundreds, no, no, thousands, of the shadows poured from the drawer, grabbing what was left of Amelia. They swarmed her, melting into her skin. The screaming had stopped. 

The thing that used to be Amelia turned and loomed over me. I didn’t stop to think, I just turned and bolted from the office. I dashed through the halls, skidding around corners, desperate for an exit. The scent of smoke was getting stronger, and the running was not helping my lungs. The hallways seemed to twist even more now, trapping me, chasing me in circles. Whatever that thing was, I felt like, like it was playing with me. Like I was just a source of entertainment. Yet instead of making me feel hopeless, I felt angry. There was a burning, righteous fury building up inside. If I was going to die here, I was going to go down fighting. I stopped running. I snatched up a paperweight placed on one of the end tables. One of those glass ones, with flowers in it. It’s smooth surface calmed me somewhat. The figure rounded the corner. It’s stride was lumpy, as if an adult was trying to walk like a baby. 

We stopped, looking at each other. At least, I think it was looking. It didn’t have any eyes I could see. Then strangely it flowed toward me, then jerked back as if on a string. I clung to my paperweight. And then I heard Amelia’s voice, muffled from somewhere, deep, deep within that thing. “Window!” I turned slightly. There, next to me was a window. I didn’t hesitate. 

I threw the paperweight with all the force I could muster. The window shattered, and I flung myself through it without a second thought. The creature roared from behind me, and I could feel it rushing for me, any trace of Amelia long gone, but I slipped through its hands and took off. Glass dug into my skin, but I just kept sprinting away. Eventually the combination of cold air and my own lungs forced me to stop. I had made my way to the student center, a place with crowds and bright lights. Whatever it was hadn’t followed me. I got some strange looks, presumably because of the glass sticking out of my skin, but one guy congratulated me on my excellent stage makeup. It actually startled a laugh out of me. I guess I was just so relieved that anything seemed funny. 

There’s one more thing. I agonized over how I would tell Emma. I mean how do you explain to someone that their sister has been...subsumed? into a shadow. I was in a state of shock I think, because before I knew it I was opening the door to our room. I couldn’t force myself to think about Amelia. Yet when I opened the door - Emma was on the phone with her mother. She paused and waved to me. I thought that was odd. Sure you see some strange things in college, but your roommate looking like a human pincushion doesn’t tend to be one of them. But then - I looked down and all the glass was gone. 

The scratches, the cuts I had been feeling, they were gone. I had a sick feeling in my stomach and, ignoring Emma’s concerned look I dashed over to her desk. The picture she had - the one of her family on their trip to France - Amelia wasn’t there. Emma and her parents smiled out of the frame, her arm was around her little brother, but Amelia was just gone. Like she’d never been there. I tried to ask Emma about it, but she told me she was the oldest, she’d always been the oldest. Her parents had no other children. I think she thought I was crazy, asking questions I should have known the answer too. 

Other people on campus had similar reactions. No one lived in Amelia’s room. No one had lived in that room this year. Her classmates didn’t remember her, neither did professors. Emma was the only Riebin listed in the campus directory. The list Amelia had shown me never went out, and I couldn't even try to track down the other names on it. I think I was just too scared. 

I didn’t want to, but I also went back to the administration building. I felt like I at least owed that to Amelia. The window was completely fine and was, in fact, in prime condition. And yet...I did find one thing. One thing that makes me know I wasn’t imagining things. There, under the window, hidden deep in one the shrubs outside the building, almost cradled by the thorns, lay the paperweight. The glass was scuffed up, but it was there. I took it back to my dorm. I still have it today. She was real. I know she was real. 

Statement Ends. 

Any statement with a disappearing person, especially one unremembered, is by nature difficult to verify. However, most of the details in this one are easy enough to follow up on, so it is there I will begin. 

Emma Riebin and Astra Lunaris are both listed among the Class of 2011 for Godwin University. Riebin was indeed a math major, while Lunaris graduated with a degree in journalism. 

It appears Lunaris was unavailable for a follow up statement, as she moved to Toronto shortly after speaking with us in order to work for a Canadian news company. However, online profiles indicate she is doing well and is still in contact with Emma Riebin. 

Martin did some looking into University records, but could find no traces of an Amelia Riebin ever having attended. Lunaris however seemed to have been particularly well regarded among students and she did apparently serve as editor-in-chief of the student newspaper for a year. 

Martin also discovered that the University’s President is currently listed as one Christopher James, however this does not inherently prove or disprove anything about Ms. Lunaris’s statement. 

Sasha had more luck. She did some digging, and in the University’s online archives she managed to find an old biology research proposal for the Study of Citrus and its Properties submitted by one A. Riebin. The proposal seems to have been, for reasons unexplained, discarded without review. 

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> This is my first work, so please let me know if I missed any tags!


End file.
